EHS freshman's problems - welcome your discussion

[Tom]

EHS freshman faced a difficult scenario. What is your advise to him?

Hi all,

I am new to the IOSH boards, i have been a H&S practitioner for about
a year and a half now.

I was a document controller originally, but my last workplace had
their HSE advisor leave for a new job overseas. I was (surprisingly)
offered his job. I had zero experience in HSE but i was good at
controling document systems and had recently finished my degree in
business administration and management.

I was put through my nebosh Gen certificate, which i passed wqith
credit, and have also completed internal audit courses and various
courses for fire safety and COSHH,

However after a year in that position, my company fell into financial
strife and they had to make some staff redundant, i waqs one of these
people. However it turned out after a month of my notice period, they
said i couldn't be fired as HSE turned out to be too important and
encompasing to hand it over to another staff member.

Unfortunately the situation was handled badly, and i had a better
offer at a new business.

I have been in my new job for 4 months now, it is a very different
place to my last job, mostly office based, my new job is a fabrication
business mainly welding pipework and offshore fabrications.

We have ISO9001, 14001 and OHSAS 18001 certs, however the HSE
requirements of the job have become to large for the managing director
to carry out so i was hired to carry out H&S obligations for the
company.

The problem is i have been the sole HSE person at both companies, i
have never had an instructor or someone to follow, so i am still very
green.

As a result i am coming into a workplace that is classed as a high
risk profession, i.e. hot work, power tools etc. The staff are quite
good at HSE but in the first 3 months of the job i have been audited
twice by BSI 2 suprise inspections by the HSE and some client audits.

We have issues that i am implementing, but i feel like all my job
involves as seen by the chairman is to cost them money, i.e. HAVS
controls and training, training courses for staff in OHC use, LEV
systems (which will not be cheap)and getting staff on my side to
understand why they have to wear ear protection, eye glasses and why i
need to bring in all these changes.

I have been thrown very much in the deep end, and i feel i am becoming
unpopular very quickly as i do not have a huge amount of confidence in
my role and i need to be ascertive, but i also feel there is a lot of
resentment at the role (not me personally) from some staff, and that
HSE is simply "jobs for the boys" and how can the company s[expletive
deleted]e by with PPE\Safe system equipment, rather than buy what is
suitable, get the cheapest one and make do.

Its difficult to enjoy your work when you feel if something goes
wrong, i will be the one getting fired when i am still trying to find
my feet, even after a year of reading all i can, about HSE management.

I don't know how you experienced guys got to your positions before
throwing in the pan and leaving companies to their fate.

Anyone any advice for a new HSE manager who feels the whole world
suddenly crashed onto his front lawn!

Sorry for long post.

[EHS Elite]

scenario continues:

I think the biggest problem is i am not 100% sure what i am doing.

I know a good chunk of the theory, but i am not 100% sure what i am
saying is always correct, i.e. a legislative point, i may not be sure
on, and it holds me back from being confident.

Although TBF my main managing director is very helpful, if a little
distant, but he understands now that i can't just appear and start
sorting things out. and the Chairman knows that money has to be
specnt, and they seem happy that i am trying to work with the company
rather than demand things change.

Its just the feeling of insecurity that a lot of the lads in the
workshop see me as a young lad who is trying to make their job harder,
though i have started to talk to them at the start of shifts, coming
in early to explain why earplugs need to be used, as its lapsed from
the previous person and my coming on board.

Although i found this forum just the other day and it has lots of real
world examples which are a lot more helpful, and i now know i can post
any queries i might have and get real world experience.

But can someone please explain how i got into HSE when i always
thought it was "Elf and Safety gon MAAAD!", now it pays my bills and i
find myself giving a damn about staff safety. hmm

[Mark Howarth]

Tom,
What you have there is a safety culture problem - I faced the same thing
when I started out. Education is key here, you need to drum into
everyone legal requirements and the consequences of getting it wrong.
Use case studies of costs to other companies who have been prosecuted
for poor H&S standards and be consistent.

Every group or shopfloor has a 'natural' leader or someone they all
listen too. Try to identify that person(s) and if you can, convince
them to act as a shop floor H&S representative who can help in
convincing shop-floor people of the positive impact of high standards.

But, be aware that it will take time to change the 'mind-set' and
culture of your workplace - always does.

Mark.

[Salman]

Tom,

Since every situation is unique, I won't take the 'this-is-what-you-
should-do-route'. I will, however, share what I went through when I
was wearing the same shoe type and size as you are right now.

My ex-boss once told me that H&S or EHS or HSE is rarely about the
technical stuff, but always about the 'people' stuff. At that time
Behaviour-based safety or People-based safety were not buzz-words, nor
did either (my boss and I) knew anything about the concept. This is
how he explained things to me at the time:

"Suppose that your (my in this case) brother is falsely accused of
being a shop-lifter. He was present in the store at the time that the
shop-lifting occured, was similar in height and age to the guy who
actually did steal, but was in the wrong place at the wrong time. The
police catch up with him from the CCTV camera footage, stand him up in
a line-up and the store rep immediately recognizes him and says 'Thats
him'!

Since you are the only one who can do anything for him (we're supposed
to be only 2 orphaned siblings in the story), you have to think of
something and do it quick before the police can make a case against
him and somehow send him to jail for 4 years."

My ex-boss then asked me:

Would you do anything (legal) to get him out of jail? I said,
ofcourse I will. And he said, "If you can do that, then you'd better
get this shop safety-ed up or your job is on the line". Not exactly
the pep talk you were looking for, but hear me out on this one.

Unless and until you realize (by you I mean any H&S rep) that the
people you are trying to convince are people, with real jobs, issues,
political agendas, etc., you're not going to be very successful at
what you do. Try and back down on telling people what to do - first
understand what they do, what their issues are, whether X department's
guys are not supporting the guy from the Y department, etc. Once (and
this will NOT take longer than a week) you have been able to
understand even what a single guy does, you can then try and help him
out in areas other than H&S. He can't get the tool issued from
stores because of some reason? You go to stores, butter up the
Manager, have the tool issued in your name, and give it to that
'single guy'. You might have to go out of your way for people to rely
on you - and they surely will. Once they're hooked, slip your arm on
the 'single guy's' shoulder and ask him to help you out in getting the
housekeeping done.

And that is how I learnt it. As an H&S rep, I was made to understand
that you cannot think of yourself as holier-than-thou, that you cannot
tell people that this is the way its supposed to be done and expect
things to happen, and that you will need to understand the business
and be able to talk-the-talk and walk-the-walk as some of the other
production guys (guys who make money for the company) to make it as a
successful resource.

Right now, think of yourself as a kid who has relocated to another
school mid-way through the academic year. However smart you may be,
you will need to make friends for the school to be remotely fun for
you. The day you start standing up for a friend, he is hooked. And
THEN you start selling safety.

Get to know who's wife is expecting, which school your colleague's
kids go to, whether anyone needs a ride home, whether there is
anything that you can do for anyone. H&S or any other support
function, will not work because of what you know - because some smart-
alec is always going to be there to try and pull the rug from under
your feet and embarass you - it will only work because of what you DO!

Best of luck buddy, we've all been there.
Salman



On Oct 28, 3:41 pm, "Mark Howarth" <mark.howa...@flexicomms.com>
wrote:

> Sorry for long post.- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

[Tom]

Mark and Salman,

You hit the nail on the head.

This freshman is encountering the problem which most of EHS
professionals have experienced. I deem a deep discussion will get a
lot of EHS freshmen out of this hard time so that is why I introduce
the scenarios here.

The freshman in the scenario was given a job of EHS although he had no
experience/knowledgement in EHS. What make it worse is no EHS mentor
for him. He has to work alone (Alone I mean here is only one EHS guy
in the company) and learn from experience/books. 　And what is more, he
has to work with colleagues who have been living in at risk
environment (unsafe culture).

What can this freshman do?

A good solution shall base on understanding of the problem. Quote the
freshman's word:'i feel i am becoming unpopular very quickly as i do

not have a huge amount of confidence in my role and i need to be
ascertive, but i also feel there is a lot of resentment at the role
(not me personally) from some staff"

There are really 2 problems.

First, no confidence. Second, bad relationship. (I think most of EHS
guys have such a problem).

First, no confidence in himself. I would like to translate this
problem to less knowledge/experience on EHS. The only quick way to
solve this problem is to attend formal EHS training or joined in a
company with very good EHS expertises. Luckily, the freshman has
realized this problem and raised his problem in the EHS forum. I have
encountered some guys who think they know everything on EHS but end up
being challenged from colleagues/boss. Their problem is they ask too
much as they do not know what will be residual risk and what is
acceptable risk. They just can not manage "Degree" and so lose
confidence from colleagues.

Second, bad relationship
Mark and Salman have talked too much on this. Yes, I do agree and I
mentioned at my BBS course, EHS guy is no doing with machine, but with
PEOPLE. The relationship between EHS and workers shall be not policy
and thief but friendship/family. When we really take our colleagues
as friend/family, they will reward it and relationship will better.

Welcome more your discussion.